The Courtesan's Wager

by Claudia Dain

“I’ll describe it to you,” Matthew said.

  “No, you shall not,” Cranleigh said. “We do not subject our young and innocent girls to adventures of that sort.”

  “No, you subject them to different sorts of adventures,” George Grey said with a cheeky grin. “Ones that involve torn clothing.”

  Her dark eyes wide with curiosity, Eleanor asked, “Did you truly and completely ruin Amelia? Does she hate you for it?”

  “Eleanor!” Lady Jordan snapped. “That will be quite enough.”

  Eleanor closed her mouth and lowered her head, but she looked at Cranleigh with a frankly assessing gaze that he found discomfiting.

  “It is perfectly plain that Lord Cranleigh has no interest in marrying Lady Amelia, nor she in him,” Lady Jordan continued. “What’s more, it is more than obvious that this satire is a complete bungle on Gillray’s part. Everyone knows how these artists starve for nine months out of every twelve. A simple ripped shawl, an excess of imagination, and now he can eat for a month. Anyone who could believe that Lord Cranleigh has any interest at all in Amelia is a fool.”

  They were staring at him: John Grey and his three sons, Lord Dalby, Eleanor, even Iveston.

  Who was the fool? That was the question.

  It wasn’t much of a question, was it?

  “I want her,” he said, more to himself than to anyone. “I am going to have her, no matter what it takes. I’ve wanted her from the moment I first saw her. Two years and more ago.”

  The women stared at him in shock. The men in approval, even Hawksworth, which astounded him somewhat. Not that he cared what anyone thought anymore. If that made him a fool, a fool for love, so much the better.

  “That cannot be true!” Lady Jordan said, taking a step nearer to Cranleigh.

  “Lady Jordan,” he said quietly, looking down at her, “it is more true and more certain than the turning of the Earth.”

  “That explains the satire,” George Grey said with a smirk.

  Lady Jordan gave every appearance of being struck dumb.

  “You don’t mean there’s any truth to it,” Hawksworth said. Yes, well, as Amelia’s brother he would be concerned about that.

  “I simply must be told about it!” Eleanor demanded.

  “It’s not a bit true,” Cranleigh said sternly, eyeing George Grey judiciously. George only grinned more fully in response.

  “I did see one that I didn’t think could possibly be a true rendition of anything,” Eleanor continued, “but as Melverley was in it, and Lord Westlin, judging by the flaming hair, I studied it quite regularly as a child.”

  As she was little more than a child now at just sixteen, it was nearly an absurd remark. Lady Jordan, however, did not react as such.

  “I’m quite certain you must be wrong,” Lady Jordan said swiftly. “I have never seen any satire that had anything to do with your father.”

  “Haven’t you?” John Grey said, not particularly kindly.

  Lady Jordan blanched. Eleanor looked on avidly. Cranleigh was momentarily intrigued. What was the connection between John Grey and Lady Jordan? Clearly there was one, though how could it have been formed, and when?

  “Describe it,” Matthew prompted. “Then I’ll describe the Cranleigh satire.”

  “I believe that matter has been settled,” Cranleigh said.

  “It’s a fair trade, sir,” Matthew said. “You are not her father, nor the man to protect her.”

  “No, Cranleigh is not a man to protect her, not Eleanor and not Amy,” Hawksworth said, sounding more energetic than Cranleigh had ever heard.

  His head jerked upward and he glared at Hawksworth. Hawksworth was a pup, young and untried, but he held his gaze. Cranleigh was reluctantly impressed.

  “I don’t need protection,” Eleanor said on a disgruntled huff of air. “I have seen satires. I do not fear them.”

  “You are not a girl who fears much of anything,” Matthew said, his eyes shining in approval.

  “Indeed, I am not,” she said, shining back at him.

  Melverley would not be pleased to see his young daughter forming an attachment to a young Iroquois. Cranleigh had seen Indians in their natural habitat while with Uncle Timothy in America; he was not fooled by an Indian in a well-tailored coat. Little Eleanor could hardly understand the difference. Indeed, most of London’s elite could not. It was why he distrusted Sophia so thoroughly. She was an Iroquois; he could see it clearly, no matter her muslin gowns and well-set jewels. There was a ruthlessness, a deviousness about her that chilled his blood. How no one else could sense it in her he couldn’t understand. Even his own brothers, Iveston and Blakes most specifically, liked her. As to that, his own mother considered Sophia a friend.

  “I do not see any woman here who requires protection,” Cranleigh said, looking down at Eleanor. She looked pleased by the comment. She might well be pleased but he was not leaving her alone with the Iroquois in the room.

  “How convenient for you,” Hawksworth said chillingly.

  “Tell me about your satire, Lady Eleanor,” Matthew said, turning the subject.

  “It was an old one, by Gillray, which is a coincidence, isn’t it?” Eleanor said.

  “Is it?” John Grey asked softly, his dark eyes glittering.

  “Isn’t it?” Eleanor asked, looking mostly at Matthew Grey, the most amiable of the three sons, and certainly more approachable than his father.

  “Tell me,” Matthew prompted, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Very well,” Eleanor said. “It was—”

  “I don’t see any reason—” Lady Jordan interrupted.

  “Let her speak,” John Grey said, and Lady Jordan grew quiet.

  Even Eleanor now became more watchful and hesitant, even more focused on Matthew.

  “Go on,” Matthew Grey commanded.

  “It was Melverley, certainly, and the old Duke of Cumberland and perhaps Aldreth? I couldn’t quite tell. But the Marquis of Dutton, the old one, not this one, he was very clear,” Eleanor said, her voice having gone very quiet. “They were pictured in a wood and … there was a woman. Dressed, or nearly so, in leaves and things, woodland things. The men looked like satyrs, the woman like a nymph, the satyrs hunting the nymph, or so it looked to me.”

  “A happy woodland nymph?” Matthew asked quietly.

  Eleanor frowned and shook her head, “No, it all looked rather frightening, if you must know, as satires sometimes do. But like something out of a myth, not real, but not unreal either. It’s not one of my favorites, but as Melverley was in it …” She shrugged, her recitation at an end.

  The Earl of Dalby excused himself and walked away, across the room toward Penrith and the Prestwicks, who had just arrived.

  “That explains much, does it not?” a voice said from the edge of their number.

  Cranleigh turned. It was the Marquis of Ruan, looking particularly somber, as indeed they all did.

  Yes, it did explain much, though Eleanor understood little of what she had seen. She was too young to understand, thank God.

  Now Sophia’s motives were clear. She had aided Amelia in her list game, damaging her reputation and ruining her chances of marrying a duke, for revenge against a twenty-year-old injury done to her by Aldreth, among others. Aldreth, who had been of that scandalous party in that scandalous wood, the nymph none other than Sophia herself before Dalby had made her his countess.

  “Explains what, Lord Ruan?” Eleanor said.

  “Be still, Eleanor,” Lady Jordan said.

  And for once, she was.

  “How old is that satire?” Ruan asked Lady Jordan.

  “Twenty years now,” Lady Jordan said, looking at John Grey as she said it.

  “And now there’s a satire of Aldreth’s daughter,” Cranleigh said, also looking at John Grey. “Hardly coincidence.”

  “Who can say?” John said.

  “I can say, that’s bloody well who!” Cranleigh said, taking a step nearer to John, his fists clenched at his sides.
/>
  “But the point,” Hawksworth said, “is not who drew the satire, but who provided the fodder for one, isn’t it? Is that a coincidence, Lord Cranleigh, or did you hope to force my sister into an alliance with you?”

  “Lord Hawksworth, your sister is not a woman to be forced into anything. She is a force unto herself and quite the most determined female of my experience,” Cranleigh said, staring into Hawksworth’s eyes.

  Unfortunately, it was a remark that could be taken in more than one way, not all of them flattering to Lord Cranleigh.

  It was at that moment, when things were taking a definite downturn, that Amelia reentered the room, Sophia Dalby at her side. They looked both composed and resolved, which did not precisely suit his purpose. Cranleigh wanted Amelia to look disheveled, marked somehow by his hands upon her, his mouth devouring hers. And resolved? Resolved to do what?

  As to Sophia, he wanted her as far away from Amelia as possible. Canada would serve nicely. Sophia, with a whispered word to Amelia, walked directly toward him.

  Cranleigh felt every nerve vibrate with expectancy.

  “I don’t suppose anyone has ever told you,” Sophia said without the least bit of preamble, “how it was that my mother came to be married to a Mohawk warrior, Lord Cranleigh?”

  It was the last thing he expected her to say, the absolute last. He couldn’t think why it should matter to him, particularly now. He stared into her dark eyes and waited, certain she would continue. She did.

  “She was a captive, you realize, and not at all happy about it, as who would be? But she was not content to remain a captive and thought it much preferred to be a wife. My father’s wife, in particular. And so she married him.”

  “Fascinating,” he said in a tone that said nothing like.

  “You miss the point, darling,” Sophia said with a brief smile. “What could possibly induce a warrior of my father’s stature to marry a captive woman? Indeed, he not only decided to marry her, he was determined to do so. So much so that he fought for her. He bled for her, Lord Cranleigh. Which is precisely how it should be, don’t you agree?”

  Cranleigh stared into Sophia’s eyes, her black, glittering Indian eyes, heard the challenge in her words, the mockery, and the wisdom. She was trying to help him, he realized with a shock, and she was trying to help Amelia, which was all he needed to know.

  No wonder his mother considered Sophia a friend. She made a good one.

  “If Amy wants my blood, she’ll have it,” he said. “Who do I have to fight to make her mine?”

  “There’s the spirit, Lord Cranleigh,” Sophia said with a smile. “You’ll need to fight Aldreth for her, I fear, and perhaps Lord Hawksworth. They are not pleased at the way Lady Amelia has been treated, which I’m sure you can understand.”

  Cranleigh bowed to her and said, “I can. I will do all to make everything right. Immediately. Lord Hawksworth, would you have a piece of me?”

  Hawksworth, which was entirely to his credit, said, “I would.”

  Cranleigh nodded crisply and the two men walked across the room toward the Duke of Aldreth … who was gone. In his former place stood Amelia. She stood alone, her back to a window, her eyes hot, sultry blue in the western light.

  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Hawksworth,” Cranleigh said. “You may have whatever scraps of my hide Amelia leaves for you.”

  He stood before her, her brother at his side, his competitors for her at his back. But Amy was before him, the sight of her filling his eyes and his heart. Nothing else mattered, nothing but having her and holding her, keeping her forever. He’d always known it, known it for what seemed a lifetime. Let his father and hers find other dreams. He had found Amy and he wasn’t letting her go.

  “Amy, I—” he began.

  “A man must grab hold of what he wants, Cranleigh, that’s what you told me,” she said, cutting him off. “But I want more. I want words, Cranleigh. I want bold action. I want—”

  “Me to be a fool for love,” he finished softly. “Amy, I will do anything you ask, be whatever you want, but there is no being a fool for love. There is only being in love.” And standing there, in the crowd of Aldreth’s At Home, he dropped to both knees and said for all to hear, “I love you. I want you. I ask that you pity me and marry me, Amy. I am a fool without you, as must be perfectly plain to you and to this entire company. I love you.” Taking her hands in his and turning the palms upward, he kissed the inside of her wrists, one after the other. “I love you,” he whispered against her skin.

  With tears in her brilliant blue eyes and laying her hands against his cheeks, she said, “About time, too.”

  Twenty-six

  AFTER that, no one seemed to want his blood, not even Aldreth. Hawksworth followed Cranleigh into his reception by the Duke of Aldreth, and a cold welcome it was, too.

  “Do you know why I allowed you to behave in that fashion in my house with my daughter?” Aldreth asked from the relative quiet of the dining room.

  “No,” Cranleigh answered, the blows starting to be felt now. A bruised eye, certainly, the left one, a cracked lip, and a bit of blood on the right brow. And that was just what could be readily seen. He was aware that, at the moment, he did not appear the most reputable of husbands for Amy, but surely the duke had been in a brawl or two in his time?

  “Because, Cranleigh, I want better for my daughter than what her mother got.”

  That took a bit of deciphering as he was still cataloguing his injuries. His right hand ached, as was to be expected.

  “I understand,” he said, not understanding at all but wanting to move this along.

  “Cranleigh, I am a duke,” Aldreth said. “I presume you understand what that means?”

  “I do,” he said. His father was a duke, after all. He did have the gist of it.

  “It means,” Aldreth said, answering his own question, Cranleigh’s reply extraneous, “that I can do what I want, have what I want, and not do what I don’t want. Do you know what results from that particular condition?”

  “No, I don’t,” Cranleigh said, fairly certain by now that no matter what he said, Aldreth would keep talking. Best to keep the man happy; he did want his daughter, after all.

  “Nothing,” Aldreth said, leaning back in his chair, his legs extended, considering Cranleigh in an almost friendly manner. Cranleigh was not fooled. This man was not his friend. “A profound habit of doing nothing, of feeling nothing.” And here Aldreth gave Hawksworth a very hard look. Hawksworth cleared his throat.

  “I see,” Cranleigh said to fill the pause in the conversation. He didn’t see. Hyde was not busy about his life doing nothing. He had been a general in the American conflict and he was busy in politics now.

  “Oh, I don’t mean to imply that the protocols are ignored. Hardly. I was instructed from an early age to marry well, to make influential friends, and inconsequential enemies, if I must have enemies at all, which I was very strongly encouraged not to do. My father, the first duke, was a very careful man.”

  “I’ve heard only good things about him,” Cranleigh said. He’d actually heard that the first Duke Aldreth had possessed skinny legs and an ability to belch on command, but that didn’t seem to the point. The man had been dead for more than twenty-five years. One’s legacy lived only so long, even if he were very careful.

  “The thing is, Cranleigh, that I’ve come to want differently for my children, for Amelia.” Cranleigh’s attention refocused on Aldreth more acutely. “And so, I agreed to this adventure in impropriety.”

  That sounded dismal. Cranleigh was nearly certain that Aldreth’s next observation was going to cast him in a horrid light, not that he didn’t deserve it, but one did hope to retain some dignity when asking for a woman’s hand in marriage.

  “Sir?” Cranleigh prompted.

  Aldreth cast him an impatient look and sat up more erectly in his chair. The light was quite soft now, the afternoon quite done, the servants not got to lighting the candles yet, small wonder as
to why. Aldreth and Cranleigh sat in growing shadow, the light going gray and dim, the edges of the room blurred.

  “I wanted her to find bliss, which sounds perfectly ridiculous when said aloud, but there you are. A duke for a husband was what I thought she’d set her heart on. But she met you and that appeared to be that. Only it wasn’t, was it?”

  Cranleigh was slightly astounded. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t make him out either a scoundrel or a fool. Perhaps he was both. He thought it likely.

  “Sir,” he said, rising to his feet to stand nearly at attention.

  Aldreth looked at him curiously. “It turned into quite a puzzle, you see. You seemed to want her, but did nothing. She seemed to want you, but …” He shrugged. “You do want her?”

  “Completely.”

  “Yet you made no effort before now.”

  “I wanted her to have what she wanted.”

  “And she didn’t want you.”

  “I didn’t believe so, no.”

  “Yet, she kissed you,” Aldreth said, steepling his fingers. “Are you implying that my daughter is a jade?”

  “Not at all!”

  “Then what did you think she was doing, kissing you all over Town?”

  “It was hardly that,” Cranleigh argued, and then seeing the frosty look in Aldreth’s light blue eyes, added, “We didn’t think anyone knew about that.”

  “You knew about it. Did you think she did that with everyone? ”

  “No.”

  “Only you, then?”

  “Yes,” Cranleigh said, though of course he hadn’t given it any thought at all, not precisely.

  “Yet you concluded it meant nothing to her, that you meant nothing to her,” Aldreth said.

  “I concluded nothing.”

  “Yes, that’s quite obvious, isn’t it?” Aldreth said, standing abruptly. “It’s in your favor that I am as dull about these things as you appear to be. It all had to be explained to me, by a woman, in fact. Women are given to scrupulous dissection on matters of the heart, which can be a bit of a bother, but one must forgive them as their observations are occasionally quite astute. As in this case.”

  “Yes,” Cranleigh said, not sure he was following exactly, but aware that Aldreth seemed to have warmed toward him in the last few minutes. “Then you’ll give your consent?”